2 Attacks Target Jews in Russia

MOSCOW —  Just days after President Bush praised Russia for religious tolerance, two anti- Semitic attacks have sent shock waves through the country’s Jewish community.

On Monday, a hand-lettered sign containing a hateful message toward Jews was erected along a highway about 20 miles outside Moscow. It exploded when a driver stopped her car and attempted to tear the sign down.

Tatyana Sapunova, 28, who is not Jewish, was severely injured in the face by fragments from the booby trap, which police said had the explosive force of several ounces of dynamite.

Then on Tuesday, the 16-year-old son of a rabbi was jumped at 8 a.m. near the center of Moscow by two skinheads shouting anti-Jewish epithets. They struck him and broke his nose in two places.

The young man, who was headed to a synagogue, frightened off the attackers when he reached into his backpack to look for something with which to defend himself. The victim, Yakov Vershubsky, is a U.S. citizen and the son of a rabbi in Voronezh, a city 300 miles south of Moscow.

The attacks follow a speech by Bush on Sunday at the Choral Synagogue in St. Petersburg in which he congratulated Russians for shedding much of the legacy of anti-Semitism from the czarist and Soviet eras.

In the same speech, and earlier at a meeting Friday with civil and religious leaders in Moscow, Bush spelled out the U.S. view that religious and ethnic tolerance is essential to Russia’s progress.

Hate crimes by nationalist skinheads have grown frequent in Russia in part because of the lax response of police, according to Jewish groups and representatives of other minorities, such as African and Asian students.

Attacks on non-Russians, especially Africans, have become so intense that the diplomatic corps last month made a rare joint complaint to the Russian Foreign Ministry demanding protection of foreigners.

An official familiar with the Vershubsky case said the youth immediately went to two police stations to report the attack. He was turned away both times by police who told him that it would be impossible to find the assailants.

One day after the attack, Interior Ministry spokeswoman Yelena Perfilova said on state-controlled RTR television that it was “premature” to call the incident anti-Semitic.

A spokesman for the Anti-Defamation League said anti-Semitic violence is on the rise.

“In recent months, there has been an increase in anti-Semitic incidents, including physical attacks on Jews, the defacement of synagogues with swastikas and the desecration of Jewish cemeteries,” Alexander Axelrod, director of the Moscow office of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the failure to take these incidents seriously has led to an environment where such attacks are more acceptable in Russian society.”

A Western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Russian President Vladimir V. Putin has spoken out clearly against hate crimes but that a draft law to toughen legislation has stalled in the Duma, the lower house of parliament.

“The statements have been very strong and very positive and encouraging,” the diplomat said. “The question is, can they be implemented?”